This year, spring in Switzerland is a long winter-like extension. It rains a lot, it’s cold and above 2000m high there is as much snow as in the heart of winter.
No wonder, it makes hiking in the mountains difficult, dangerous and complicated.
I managed to ride my bike in a “riding as high as possible” way, which means no loop tour, but following paths as far as possible than riding back.
Of course, I was riding the electric bike.
I took an unexpected route, which turns out to be beautiful and definitely a better alternative to the usual one. As it happened, I was nearly rode over by a huge tractor. The road was really narrow, leaving no place for two vehicles and the criminal behind the steering wheel was driving so fast that he had to do an emergency brake, leaving 30m long tracks on the road. The tractor was so wide (you know, the new one we see flourishing these past years), that I had to step off the bike and push it form behind to pass. I couldn’t even stand on the bike as I would have touched either the tractor or the fence. Just to give an idea how narrow the turn was and why I call the driver a criminal for driving so fast without visibility.
Anyway, as my nerves had turned into marshmallow, I took a sideways track to avoid another encounter of this kind.
My first destination was the Hongrin dam, whose level is still very low.
My next destination was either the Dent de Jaman or the Jaman’s pass.
I wanted to ride to the Dent de Jaman but the path was so full of rocks and wanderers (albeit it was a week day), that I turned back and went to the Col de Jaman, instead.
After that I rode back the same way, meeting an unexpected numbers of tourists.
The next day, I was hiking the the St Bernard area as the road to the St Bernard pass was “opened”, actually more or less free of snow, but still forbidden to traffic.
As the hiking paths are still covered in snow, we walked on the road. An empty road.
